Drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake, and increase your fat intake.

You will lose weight, and if you are diabetic, you will be much better able to control your blood glucose.

Eating "below" 2000 calories a day doesn't mean a whole lot.  If you sit around all day and eat 1950 calories/day, you can easily gain weight.  If you aren't moving around a lot you should be shooting for a lower target, like 1600-1700.  That's what I targeted and I easily lost a pound a week.  

I'm a software engineer.  I sit on my ass all day at work, take the dog for a couple short walks each day, do a little housework, and go out every now and then.  My pedometer puts me at around 5k steps/day on average and I haven't worked out in years.  I easily dropped 15 lbs between January & April using MyFitnessPal with a goal of losing 1lb/week.  That put me around 1600 calories/day I believe.  

The key is you have to be honest with your portion sizes.  I mean brutally honest.  If you aren't sure, overestimate what you ate.  Log everything, even if it is a couple M&Ms or ketchup on your fries.  That shit adds up faster than you think.  And avoid cheat days, at least until you are able to start exercising regularly.  One meal at Pizza Hut can easily wipe out an entire week's progress.  Even though you've been "under 2000" 90% of the time, your average caloric intake for the week still sucks if you splurge and eat 3500 calories in a single day.

Don't count on exercise to lose weight.  If you are in that bad of shape it is unlikely that you'll be able to exercise enough to make any meaningful dent compared to your diet.  Just look online and see how long you'd have to jog at a fast pace to burn 100 calories.  Then think about how fast you can drink a glass of milk.  I'm not saying you shouldn't exercise.  Just do it with other goals in mind - like not having a heart attack.  Exercise won't save you from a poor diet unless you hit it hard and hit it daily and it sounds like that isn't an option for you at this point in time.

ETA and stay away from junk food.  Stick to salads and protein.  I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy but I cut back on carbs when I was losing weight.  I don't know if cutting the carbs did it for me or the caloric deficit (probably a combination of both) but fries, rice, pasta, chips, etc. all have a lot of calories and didn't really fill me up.  YMMV.

http://fourhourbody.com/ Check out this website and if you want me to send you my copy of the book IM me.
Have you had your thyroid check?
With a brain injury you might have a medical more than a mental condition keeping the weight on.

Drop the 'diet' soda......completely.

Switch to Iced Tea......it's way better for you and way way way cheaper.  You can buy a box of Lipton tea bags for $3...and make Iced Tea all summer long.  

WIN / WIN

Good luck.

I broke my back in a fall about 12 years ago...

The answer to being able to work around it is staying strong, flexible and keeping weight off...  If I slack in any of those departments I'm going to start feeling a lot moar pain right quick...

Getting the area around the damage strong helps the most... Start off in a pool basicly just doing stretches... Do some laps while you are at it, swimming buns calories like a mofo and is the least painful IMO..

Lol and now what do you weigh?

Nothing is funnier than watching aging wannabe powerlifters balloon up and become confined to their rascal with diabetes

And this is why serious questions go in Team instead of GD.

Honestly, I thought long and hard about whether or not to post this in team, but I decided to post in GD so that ANYONE who is having similar problems can see that except for some minor asshattedness, pretty much everyone else is supportive.

ETA: Quite frankly dustrod hasn't been too much of an asshat and if anyone crosses the line, the mods will "Hammer of the Gods" ban someone with a quickness...

Fwiw, most people who get that big have mental health problems and seek comfort from them by eating and have a much easier time shedding lbs if they address the other issues first.

edit: saw your posts below about injuries. this probably doesn't apply as much in that context.

If you possibly can, swim.

Water resistance uses up calories, and reduces stress on joints.

Ah, just give up and blame your parents for giving you bad genes (the ones where the waist band is too tight).

fucking bananas

I have hypothyroidism, VERY low testosterone levels (normal levels are around 300, mine are single digits), my A1C was 12.4 now is 7.8 and still dropping and I was on MASSIVE amounts of Oxycontin/Roxycodone. I am voluntarily reducing the opiates (hopefully to zero) because I know its fucking with my system.

My TBI manifests itself mostly in short term memory recall and vocabulary recall... I have a higher than normal IQ and its VERY frustrating to speak publicly sometimes because I sound like an illiterate moron. Posts now take 3 or 4 times longer because I can't remember words like "vocabulary" and "voluntarily"...

Thank you very much. Most people think I'm a dick

Rude.

I would look at yoga to help with flexibility and with some resistance, and a good solid diet. Be it one that works for you, either the Paleo or the Keto or the low carb/no carb.

Swimming is a great idea too. For weight ideas at home, check out "never gymless", good for increasing from different pushup position and situps, among other exercises.

I broke my back. When I started the recovery, swimming was the only bearable exercise. That quickly evolved into walking then jogging. He definitely needs to try to keep from doing too much damage to his back and knees, the pool would be a good place to start. It's a hell of a workout anyway.

I think your a dick.



Because you have a Barret and I dont.

I have a copy, if I can find it I will send it to you.

I have a copy, if I can find it I will send it to you.

 

Yea the whole Drill Sgt. bit doesn't fly all the time.

Agreed.

Diet soda is the Devil, avoid it like poison.

Want an even cheaper substitute than iced tea?

Plain ol' ice water with a squirt of fruit juice.

Lime, lemon, pomegranate, pineapple, whatever.

Cheap, good, and you won't be tempted to add sweeteners.

Good news is that no one on the internet can tell.  I've actually dealt with that for a while now, and I don't even have a brain injury to blame for it.  

The good news is that you've probably got a large vocabulary.  That helps, as you can say things like "not compulsory" instead of "voluntary".  You can also try defining the word you're struggling with, like "a word that means not being forced to".  Memories are weird ladders that jump between seemingly unrelated ideas.  Anything can lead to that connection and then the word comes back.  When out with friends, if it's real bad, I'll just tell them what the word I'm looking for means right in the middle of the sentence and carry on.  The word will come back later and what matters is that you were able to communicate the idea.  Your friends know you're not stupid.

Fruit juice is sugar.  Not that much better than drinking a coke if you're trying to avoid calories and sugar.

the weight loss really sounds like something you need your dr's help sorting out.

if you're really sticking to 2k calories or less per day, at that weight, there's no reason other than the medical problems or meds that you shouldn't be losing weight.

OP, I feel for you. My thyroid hates me.

Are you on medication for the hypo? If you aren't, there's not a whole lot you can do to lose weight, as far as I know.

I may be somewhat slim and in shape (6'-1" 194 lbs, 33 inch waist), but I'm bald and ugly as a duck's ass.

The secret to happiness is learning to accept your faults. It took me a long time to accept this.

Not talking about drinking fruit juice straight, just a squirt in a glass of ice water.

Like, a teaspoons worth.

For pineapple juice, that equates to about 6 tenths of a gram of sugar per serving...hardly a diet wrecker.

Lime juice in a teaspoon quantity has no measurable sugar at all.

Exercise ain't gonna do it.

Diet (and by that I don't mean some off-the-wall, unsustainable, half-assed eating scheme) is what will help you in the end, if you are willing to modify your food choices.

I'd come walk with you man. Got to get a gym partner. Someone to make you get up and go.

I don't know if it is total bullshit or not but that ddp yoga supposedly helped people out.
http://www.diamonddallaspage.com/?page_id=24

Maybe for a bean poll...

I'd probably think him a bigger dick if had a Barrett as opposed to a Barret LOL

But really, thanks to everyone that's been so supportive. It really does mean a lot to me...

Major points for recognizing it. Seriously, that's a bold thing to come to terms with.

Keep at it, stay the course. I hope for you and your health you continue down the path you're on.

Pfffff please... I'm 6' and 235lbs.... I'm fat!!!

I thought this is where we all come to confess something.

Yes, right now I'm on 150mcg (that's MICROgrams) of synthroid... We are still adjusting dosages.

Going with this.  I've suffered a slipped disc before and it made it difficult to do anything, so I know what a bitch back pain can be.

Other than that, the old stand bys are eat less and exercise more....because that's what works.  

I've gone for a run every single day this year (not always long or fast) and worked on eating better.  Used to skip breakfast and eat a big lunch, and snack late at night.  Now I make sure I have breakfast (either an egg or a V8 breakfast drink), no late night snacking and drinking much less beer has helped me lose 18 lbs this year so far.

You can do it, just have to be dedicated.  If you slip up don't let it beat you, just do better tomorrow.  Eat less, move more....whatever you gotta do to get there, that's what you need to be doing.

Eat less. Many tricks that are easy to remember that work well - eliminate sodas, drink water instead. Eat the main dish, never the sides. My parents (in their 50s) recently took my diet advice (which is simply "eat less") and lost over a hundred pounds each. For the first time in about 15-20 years, they're at a healthy weight. No fad diets, no crossfit, no lifting. You don't need to go Paleo, or Atkins, or Jenny Craig. Eat less. You can eat the same food you always have, just in smaller quantities. If you want muscle, exercise. If you want to lose weight, eat less. A marathon runner can burn a ton of calories, but you can't just go from being a hundred plus pounds overweight to being a marathoner - you'll wreck your joints permanently. It takes time to work up to that level.

Good start! Can you afford TRT if your endo will prescribe it?

Eat less than 20 grams of carbs per day OR if you are unwilling to do that, then eat every other day. Eat double your daily calories on the days you eat. You can't lose weight when your insulin is flowing about. Having a full day to burn existing fat will work better than other feeding methods, especially the "lots of small meals" bro-science.

One benefit that I do have is that I have great health insurance from my wife's work. I started with the gel stuff that you apply to the armpit area, but I had several issues.

One is that because of my memory issues, I would forget whether or not I had taken it. Not wanting to double up on something as powerful as testosterone, I would end up not taking it out of fear. I definitely had some minor aggression issues as well...

This.

Lower the calories and figure out what if anything you can do. seated dumbbell or similar, some sort of leg extension (weight with a loop to stick your foot into)

Anything to keep from being sedentary even if you cant walk around all the time.

Diet Soda has to go.

You already lost around 50 pounds. You're doing fine.

Diet soda creates an insulin response in your body, don't drink it period.  It may be a major factor in your current plateau.
Gallon of water a day minimum.
Keto Diet - Google it and read up.  You're a guy, it'll work.
Marksdailyapple.com
2000 calories may not be enough, seriously, you might need more.
Make those calories count.  Good fat and protein are your friends.
Move more.  Anything is better than sitting.  Push ups, stretching, shooting hoops, mowing the grass..

Good luck.  You are the master of your own destiny.

How about a calendar / checklist. Put it on, check the box  to remember you used it.

 
Agree with this and I'm about to start doing exactly that myself.


OP...I know your budget's limited but check with a local college and see if they have a heated pool for year round use. Our local community college has an olympic size pool with free time for swimming and classes. It costs me $115 per semester, unlimited use.



Keep going friend, I'm pulling for you and praying for you. For both of us.

This.

Your health insurance doesn't cover the gym?

Normal for whom?

I think that 300 mark is some medical/insurance industry bullshit.

Your short term memory and vocabulary issues can also be a result of low T.

Call it a "mental fog" if you want.

Normally, I am not one to pay attention to motivational type sayings and pics, but this one caught my eye the other day:



Switching gears yet again...there may be a link between artificial sweeteners in diet soda and insulin spikes or insulin resistance.  I guess in turn that causes the body to put on fat.